Is it possible that whole teams burn out? If you are following publications of psychology: yes, it is. Team burnout is characterised by the dimensions of the individual burnout (exhaustion, decreasing performance, estrangement) and within a team the loss of social cohesion.

Here are some characteristics concerning team burnout (based on Fengler 2015):

Indetermination

Consent without results

Joy about failure

Testiness

Hostility against other sub systems

Refusal of reflection

Those characteristics are just an extract. Each of them does not reveal per se a team burnout. If appear in combination they might indicate a big risk of team burnout. So take care if some of them exist.

I often saw those characteristics, especially during a change of the way of work (e. g. an agile transition). If you are working with a new team it is usually easy to spot strange behaviour. Most often the characteristics were already in place, during the change they were revealed, reinforced or weakened.

In this post, to stay with the agile example, I will relate to scrum examples.

"Burnout 1", Dave Wild (Creative Commons 2.0)

Indetermination

Tuesday, 11:27 a. m., retrospective: The team is discussing a pain point. Despite the pain the team cannot conclude consequences from it. There is no chance towards agreement. The issue silts up and does not get solved.

Consent without results

During the sprint: The team struggles with a well known issue, which the team already decided to fix. The issue and steps to solve it have been discussed and decided in a former retrospective. But no one takes a step ahead to fix it.

It's like the team behaves disconnected from its own reality, unable to maintain its own performance. A gap emerges between the team decision and the long-yearned-for adjustment. Those adjustments are forgotten, dissolve in apathy.

Joy about failure

During the sprint: A server crash, fall of number of bookings, important supply is missing - name it as you want - and the team is delighted. Sarcasm spreads. You hear "did you see how competent XY did this great work" or "if it is offline, at least nobody is able to argue about the usability - that's progress".

Testiness

During the sprint: Thin-skinned, tension, vulnerbility - during a day team members hit the ceiling because of little things. The relationships between the team members are under constant pressure and worn down. The sense of belonging is hurt. Outside of the team room the enemy is everywhere expected.

Personal contact shuts down. A testy silence spreads. Everybody is afraid of to start a talk. Collaboration sinks faster than a stone. In consequence work gets only partially done or slows down.

Hostility against other sub systems

Friday, 10:28 a. m., daily scrum: One team member is complaining about the poor collaboration of the other department, which are responsible for the operation of the application. Despite of several requests response is missing. The other team members also let of steam. A surprisingly heavy criticism gets uttered. The group identity and cohesion of the organisation gets lost. No wonder that especially component teams, which rely on collaboration, are hostile to each other.

Those refusal between departments is very common. Just to name the classic conflict between development and sales:

Development: "they know nothing but sell it"

Sales: "they cannot develop something in budget which works"

In case of a dysfunction look out for "win/loose" relationships.

Refusal of reflection

Wednesday, 01:43 p. m., retrospective: A pain point gets addressed. It's something about organisational scope which cannot be fixed by the team but puts it under pressure. From the observing position of a ScrumMaster it is quite clear: there is a problem. On the other hand the team insists that everything is normal, they deny the problem.

The elephant is in the room, still growing and the team decides to ignore and hack the problem as part of their job. It looks like everybody's got one hand tied to his back and nobody cares. In the end the team might loose its ties to the organisation and is no longer capable to get involved with the problem.

Finally

Estrangement destroys the binding towards the own organisation. Emotional retreat is consequence and health is affected negatively. If anger, resentment, fear, contempt or disgust replaces the joy of work then exhaustion and decreased performance might naturally follow, too.

Often people and their relationships are the only glue left that sticks people to an organisation. If this glue gets lost (cohesion) then everybody starts to work on his own, interaction vanishes. The risk of team burnout increases dramatically. The organisation might break apart.

Way out

You can use retrospectives, if you are facing consent without results, indetermination or refusal of reflection. For example you can support the team to stick with its decided actions. Furthermore you are able to show improvement or missing action. Asking in every retrospective about the improvement and value of each action with a starfish scale inquiry is a good idea.

Reflection

You might evaluate your team concerning those questions or discuss them during a retrospective: